er so far removed
from the truth, no critic short of a Cabinet Minister himself can
convict the narrator of error.

It was a large dingy room, covered with a Turkey carpet, and
containing a dark polished mahogany dinner-table, on very heavy
carved legs, which an old messenger was preparing at two o'clock in
the day for the use of her Majesty's Ministers. The table would have
been large enough for fourteen guests, and along the side further
from the fire, there were placed some six heavy chairs, good
comfortable chairs, stuffed at the back as well as the seat,--but on
the side nearer to the fire the chairs were placed irregularly; and
there were four armchairs,--two on one side and two on the other.
There were four windows to the room, which looked on to St. James's
Park, and the curtains of the windows were dark and heavy,--as became
the gravity of the purposes to which that chamber was appropriated.
In old days it had been the dining-room of one Prime Minister after
another. To Pitt it had been the abode of his own familiar prandial
Penates, and Lord Liverpool had been dull there among his dull
friends for long year after year. The Ministers of the present day
find it more convenient to live in private homes, and, indeed, not
unfrequently carry their Cabinets with them. But, under Mr. Mildmay's
rule, the meetings were generally held in the old room at the
official residence. Thrice did the aged messenger move each armchair,
now a little this way and now a little that, and then look at them as
though something of the tendency of the coming meeting might depend
on the comfort of its leading members. If Mr. Mildmay should find
himself to be quite comfortable, so that he could hear what was said
without a struggle to his ear, and see his colleagues' faces clearly,
and feel the fire without burning his shins, it might be possible
that he would not insist upon resigning. If this were so, how
important was the work now confided to the hands of that aged
messenger! When his anxious eyes had glanced round the room some
half a dozen times, when he had touched each curtain, laid his
hand upon every chair, and dusted certain papers which lay upon a
side-table,--and which had been lying there for two years, and at
which no one ever looked or would look,--he gently crept away and
ensconced himself in an easy chair not far from the door of the
chamber. For it might be necessary to stop the attempt of a rash
intruder on those secret